God Forgets

Hebrews 10:15-18 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: 16 “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” 17 Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” 18 And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.
 
WHEN Hebrews says the Holy Spirit testifies to us about this, he affirms the Spirt inspired the writing of the Old Testament. When we’re reading and teaching the Bible, we must know we are reading words that come from heaven through the  hands of anointed writers and into our hearts.
    In the midst of Judah’s darkest time when God’s people became exiles in Babylon, the Holy Spirit spoke a marvelous promise to the prophet Jeremiah: Jeremiah 31:33-34 is the source of Hebrews’ words here. God promised there would be a new covenant – a new agreement – between himself and Israel. The law would become more than words written on a tablet or scroll. God’s Word would be written on their minds and on their hearts. In other words, God would form a new relationship with his people. They would know him as a personal Lord and Savior.
    This relationship would occur through God’s gift of faith to people, so they would know the Lord’s redemptive power. This happened at Pentecost when the Spirit empowered the apostles to preach and 3,000 Jews in the crowd to believe. Throughout the ages, then, the Spirit has anointed believers in each generation. He dwells within the believer to continue revealing God’s truth to us in a personal, life-transforming way. All who are saved know God.
    And there is one more magnificent promise in the new covenant. God says, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” How can the Almighty God have no memory of our forgiven sins?
    Think of reconciliation. Paul uses this term in defining God’s purpose and outcome of our salvation: 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  
    God’s purpose to bring you into a personal relationship is to not count, but to forget your sins. When you have a personal relationship with Jesus, God forgives and forgets those sins that kept you from him. When you regularly confess your sins as his chosen son or daughter, he casts them aside also. God is holy. He is not putting up a list of sins to hold them against you. In the power of Jesus’ sacrifice of reconciliation, your sins are done when you confess them to God.
    Our response must be twofold: Forget your sins. Forget others’ sins. We can continually judge our past sins and believe we are unworthy. But holding past sins in self-condemnation is sin in itself. Let it go. God has forgotten, and so must you.
    Also, you or others may say, “I can forgive. But I can’t forget.” If you are still remembering someone’s sin, you are not forgiving. You are holding the list before you to remind you of the way that person hurt you. You must forget as the Lord forgets. Be reconciled in spirit and in love to those who have hurt you. That’s how  you want to be treated, isn’t it? That’s how the holy God treats you.